The Doctrine of the Trinity according to Karl Rahner Researched

98 Pages·2008·0.81 MB·English

The Doctrine of the Trinity
according to Karl Rahner

Researched and Written by:
Milton Michael Kobus

Respectfully submitted to
the designated faculty and administrators
of the Graduate Theological Foundation
in partial fulfillment of the prescript
for the Doctor of Theology, Roman Catholic Studies
2007
Dedication

With respect and love for my wife, Grace –

To Darlene Connelly for her dedication and persistence –

To Dr. Gregory Daley for his motivational comments –

And to Fr. Karl Rahner for allowing me to touch the Holy Mystery.

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Abbreviations

AC – Clement H. Crock, The Apostles Creed, (London: B.
Herder, 1938).

AH – Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo, (California:
University of California Press, 1967).

CA – Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, (San Fransisco:
Harper Press, 1994).

CC – The Catechism of the Catholic Church, (New York:
Catholic Book Publishing CO., 1994).

CD – The New Catholic Dictionary, (New York: The
Universal Knowledge Foundation, 1929).

CE – The Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 Vols., (New York:
The Encyclopedia Press, Inc., 1914).

CF – Karl Rahner, The Content of Faith, (New York:
Crossroad, 1999).

CK – Edited by DeClan Marmion and Mary E. Hines, The
Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner, (Cambridge,
UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

DT – Saint Augustine, De Trinitate, (New York: New City
Press, 1991).

FC – Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith,
(London: Darton, Longman & Todd/New York:
Seabury, 1978).

GF – Karl Rahner, Grace in Freedom, (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1969).

GT – Ted Peters, God as Trinity: Realationality and
Temprality in Divine Life, (Louisville, Kentucky:
John Knox Press, 1993).

HB – The Catholic Edition of The Holy Bible, NRSV,
(Tennessee: Catholic Bible Press, 1993).

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HW – Karl Rahner, Hearers of the Word, (London: Sheed
and Ward/New York: Herder and Herder, 1969).

ID – Edited by Paul Imhof and Hubert Biallowons, Karl
Rahner in Dialogue: Conversations and Interviews 1965 -1882, Translation
edited by Harvey D. Egan (New York: Crossroad, 1986).

IR – An autobiographical interview with Meinold Krauss,
Karl Rahner: I Remember, (New York: Crossroad,
1985).

JC – Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ, (Burns and Oates Ltd,
UK, 1976).

KR – William Dych, Rahner, (London: Continuum, 2000).

ME – Harvey D. Egan, S.J., Karl Rahner: The Mystic of
Everyday Life, )New York: Crossroad, 1998).

NG – Karl Rahner, Nature and Grace, (New York: Sheed
and Ward, 1964).

PH – Phillip Hughes, A Popular History of the Catholic
Church, (New York: MacMillian Publishing, 1962).

RR – Gerald A. McCool, A Rahner Reader, (New York:
Seabury, 1975).

SE – Karl Rahner, Spiritual Exercises, (New York: Herder
and Herder, 1965).

SM – Karl Rahner with Cornelius Ernst and Kevin Symth
(eds), Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of
Theology, 6 Vols, (London: Burns and Oates/ New
York: Sheed and Ward, 1968 – 1970).

ST – Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, (Maryland:
Christian Classics, 1991).

STR – Francis Schussler Fiorenza and John P. Galvin,
editors, Systematic Theology: Roman Catholic
Perspectives, Vol. 1, (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
1991).

SW – Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World, (London: Sheed
and Ward/New York: Herder and Herder, 1968).
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TA – Dorothee Solle, Thinking about God, (London: SCM
Press LTD., 1990).

TC – William G. Rusch, editor, The Trinitarian
Controversy, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980).

TD – Karl Rahner, On the Theology of Death, (New York:
Herder and Herder, 1961).

TF – Douglas John Hall, Thinking the Faith, (Minneapolis:
Augsburg Fortress 1989).

TG – Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ, (New York:
Crossroad, 1991).

TGC – Mary Ann Fatula, The Triune God of Christian
Faith, (Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 1990).

TI – Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations, 22 Vols.,
(London: Darton, Longman and Todd/ New York/
Crossroad, 1961 – 1991).

TM – Nina Rosenstand, The Moral of the Story, (New
York: McGraw Hill, 2000).

TT – Karl Rahner, The Trinity, (New York: Herder and
Herder, 1970).

UK – Herbert Vorgrimler, Understanding Karl Rahner: An
Introduction to His Life and Thought, (New York:
Crossroad, 1986).

WG – Leo J. O’Donovan, A World of Grace: An
Introduction to the Themes and Foundations of Karl
Rahner’s Theology, (New York: Crossroad, 1981).

WS – Karl Rahner, Faith in a Wintry Season:
Conversations and Interviews with Karl Rahner in
the Last Years of His Life, editors, Paul Imbrof and
Hubert Biallowons, translated and edited, Harvey
Egan, (New York: Crossroad, 1990).

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Table of Contents

Chapter One: Introduction and Influences

Section I: An Introduction and a Brief Adumbration

Section II: The Ignatian Influence on Karl Rahner

Section III: Martin Heidegger’s Influence on Karl
Rahner

Section IV: Joseph Marechal, Transcendental
Thomism and Karl Rahner

Section V: Various Citations Illustrating Karl

Rahner’s Place in Christian Theology
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Introduction

The intent of this dissertation is to interpret Karl Rahner’s understanding of the
Trinity. The position adopted does not consider any direct abrogation of this central
mystery of Christianity by Rahner. Rather, the view proffered suggests that Karl
Rahner’s trinitarian thought was conceived to augment the general comprehension of the
doctrine. My work will focus on his nuanced perceptions of the Trinity. It will not imply
that Rahner had developed a personal radical version of the Trinity surreptitiously
concealed and/or available only to those clandestine few who might apprehend his
abstruse ruminations. This monograph will demonstrate a pastoral component deep
within the savant. His was a concern for those whom he termed, ‘the average christian’.
Those, who because of inadequate pedagogy, would either conclude that the Trinity was
a tritheism or an unnecessary scholion in Church dogma.
In accordance with the above disquietude, the penultimate intention of my work is
to elicit Karl Rahner’s trinitarian position more intelligibly for the contemporary
Christian. While in so doing, I will fulfill the ministerial requirement for the Doctor of
Theology per the prescript of the Graduate Theological Foundation. Simultaneously
knowing that I am in congruence with Karl Rahner’s pastoral and academic mode.
The significance of my dissertation on a profoundly personal level, therefore,
permits me to resonate with Rahnerian insights. However, more cherished is the
internalization within my head and heart toward a conviction, a moment, when the Holy
Mystery commissions me to share this deposit of knowledge and love with others.
Prior to establishing the title of this treatise, my experience had revealed that the
synergy between the term Trinity and the name, Karl Rahner, provided many astute
colleagues with an ominous and obfuscated perception. Akin to the name ‘Einstein’ in
the area of quantum physics, many are want to avoid abstruse thinking being comfortable
with liminal reckonings. My work desires to challenge this errant premise, and with no
sense of ego, provide a less than banal exposition of Rahner’s trinitarian elucidations.
Clearly this journey will be arduous but simultaneously exhilarating. Hence, the purpose
of this work is always to examine the inexhaustible doctrine of the Trinity as posited by
the limited notions of Karl Rahner.
The dissertation will unfold by being teased out in four essential chapters. While
each chapter is briefly profiled below, the gist of my work unpacks the doctrine of the
Trinity according to Karl Rahner. Consequently, only individuals and elements germane
to his trinitarian formulations and interpretations will be considered. These are essential
to an explicit understanding of the scope of the man and his work. The corpus of my text
will avoid unnecessary inference. However, adjacent information engaging the fabric of
the dissertation and casting relevant doctrinal data is both inescapable and obligatory.
Hence, this first chapter is an introduction to the dissertation.
Here, a brief overview of the intention of my work is reified. Further, within this initial
chapter, I will discuss the person of Karl Rahner based upon multiple insights from those
closest to him. The dissertation will delve into the philosophical, spiritual and
theological influences and personages that, early on, channeled his imagination.
Included, but not exclusive of this prestigious cadre, are Thomas Aquinas, Martin
Heidegger, Joseph Marechal and Ignatius of Loyola. Further, in this chapter, I will
consider Karl Rahner’s place in Christian theology. Although, not the schema of this
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dissertation, this treatment is appropriate since he is arguably the most important Roman
Catholic theologian of the twentieth century. It is my personal contention that Rahner
along with Karl Barth, may possibly be considered the most acute Christian thinkers of
the past several decades.
The second chapter will be an overview of the doctrine of the Trinity. Here, I will
treat the developmental historicity of Christian theology as focused on ‘de Deo trino’.
The consideration will include Patristic and Counciliar statements which have formed
contemporary trinitarian dogma. While never escaping the reality and beauty of the
Trinity, this approach will contextualize the core mystery of Christianity. The immediate
consequence of such a framing out will prepare the reader for those Rahnerian elements
and trinitarian nuances that are the essence of this dissertation. Much of this work will be
deduced from the pre-Vatican II Catholic Encyclopedia and adapted accordingly.
Specificity, is the shema of the third chapter. At this juncture, my work will
consider Karl Rahner’s trinitarian language and methodology. Here, an account of that
which is distinctly Rahnerian will be enunciated and serve as the axial moment of this
monograph. This chapter will delineate Rahner’s foundational formula in his
development of a trinitarian theology. The examination is a consideration fundamental to
his conception of the economic and immanent Trinity. For Karl Rahner it was axiomatic
that the economic Trinity is the immanent Trinity and that the immanent Trinity is the
economic Trinity. The dissertation will demonstrate that it is from this cardinal maxim
that Rahnerian theology of the triune God is actualized and evolves. Hence, the dual self-
communications of the Father in both Word and Spirit become a necessary corollary
eventuating from this axiom. Therefore, scholarship insists that all implications of the
above must be incorporated within the third chapter.
The fourth chapter and concluding chapter is designed as an excursus providing
my interpretation of the trinitarian doctrine according to Karl Rahner. It will engage in
an explanation of the salience of this holy mystery for the contemporary church. Further,
this chapter will express Rahner’s consideration regarding the triune God in a more
intelligible language for the ‘moyen Chretien’. Here the crux of the necessary and
requisite ministerial component for the Doctor of Theology degree is fashioned. The
complex academic and technical trinitarian terminology of the Reverend Doctor Rahner
will be contoured in an effort to make more comprehensible the sacred enigma as posited
by this astute Roman Catholic theologian. Hence, the ministerial work within the
scholarship of this dissertation is the educative process moving toward a moment of
illumination for any Christian concerned with the Trinity and the dimensions of
articulation as expressed by Rahner. The intent of my work is never to confound but
always to clarify. Consequently, while this dissertation insists on abstraction within the
cognitive domain of Rahner’s trinitarian exposition. It is augmented by the catechesis of
the affective domain which viscerally yearns to enlighten the assiduous and faith-filled
student of the triune God.
A brief conclusion which summarizes the dissertation will follow Chapter four.
Here, an abridged account of the salient motifs examined throughout this document will
be reviewed. Cogent reflection upon Rahner’s trinitarian propositions is a requirement of
this concise summation.

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Chapter I
Section I

Karl Rahner: a concise biographical adumbration

One of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the twentieth century,
Karl Rahner concedes that as a child he was raised “in a normal middle class Christian
family.”1
His father, Professor Karl Rahner Sr. (1868 – 1934) held the rather prestigious post of
assistant principal at the teacher’s college in Freiburg. While, Karl’s mother, Luise
Trescher Rahner (1875 – 1976) nurtured the seven family children. In order to
supplement the modest Rahner income both parents took on additional responsibilities.
While Professor Rahner tutored local students Luise Rahner applied herself to
neighborhood child care. A consequence of this eastern Black Forest work ethic resulted
in enough financial stability to provide each of the seven children with a university
education.
Karl, the middle child, born in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany on March 5, 1904,
experienced few childhood problems. Although he did endure the typical obligatory
elementary and secondary school education. Karl “described himself as an average pupil
who found classes somewhat boring.2 However, early on he recognized that his family
“was in one way or another clearly Catholic and Christian at that.”3
It would be errant to downplay the role of Karl’s mother, Luise, since history contends
that she was not only brilliant but also courageous and quite religious. She may be
considered the kedge in the Catholic identity of the family, Rahner.4 Karl’s brother,
Hugo Rahner, his elder by four years entered the Society of Jesus in January, 1919. it is
intriguing that neither Karl’s personal monographs nor the secondary literature tend to
espouse any substantive evidence of Hugo’s vocational decision which would clearly
effect the younger brother, Karl. “I would say that that certainly made my decision easier
somehow. But I don’t attribute great significance to my brother’s example for my
decision.”5
Karl’s intent to enter the Jesuit community was presented to his parents by a
rather discouraging religion teacher. The educator, Dr. Meinrad Vogelbacher, considered
that, “Karl isn’t suited for that. He’s too withdrawn and grumpy. He should become
something else.”6 As a counterpoint to the above remark, Herbert Vorgrimler, student
and colleague of Rahner ruminates,…”Rahner’s teacher of religion, Dr. Meinrad
Vogelbacher, certainly played a part in his decision to become a priest and theologian.
As I, too, had Vogelbacher… twenty years later, I can confirm Rahner’s judgments that
he was a very intelligent, educated, reasonable, if somewhat shy teacher who had studied
at the Germanicum in Rome…Vogelbacher will have been able to arouse an interest in a
philosophical form of theology in the introspective Karl Rahner. Rahner could not work
out exactly in his old age why he wanted in particular to become a Jesuit. The example
of his brother Hugo certainly made his decision easier; but they never talked about it,
since Alemannian Germans do not speak much about such things, even with brothers they
especially like.”7
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Hence, perhaps the young Rahner’s vocational discernment provides an omen
envisaging his inchoate determination to architectonically discover unity in diversity.
This dissertation will show that he moved toward a single truth amongst many
legitimately structured options. Karl possessed “a grumpy charm”8 with a pastoral
inclination. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest of the Society of Jesus by Cardinal
Michael Faulhaber on July 26, 1932 in Munich.
While not necessarily or directly influenced toward a priestly vocation by Hugo,
Karl did collaborate on a publication of mutual interest with his elder brother. Hugo’s
ability as a patristic scholar of some repute would converge with Karl’s 1936 doctoral
dissertation on theology. Both the brothers shared a common nexus in their fascination
with the historical and mystical ruminations of the early church fathers. The young
Rahner had become passionate regarding a mystagogical notion discover in “the fathers”.
It was a profound, almost eerie, consideration in which the Church was flowing from the
wound inflicted on the pierced side of the crucified Christ. This motif intrigued Karl and
became the impetus for his theological doctoral dissertation. Rahner’s dissertation was
entitled, The origin of the Church as a Second Eve from the Side of Christ the Second
Adam: An Investigation of the Typological Significance of John 19:34. Since this
passage had historically presented a hermeneutical theme of interest to early Church
fathers, the Rahner brothers collaborated on their only unified manuscript in 1939.
Asceticism and Mysticism in the Patristic Period was their scholarly historical
consideration of the Catholic Church’s early notions from Origen to the mystics of the
high Middle Ages9 with a vision toward Her future. Karl Rahner did possess a proclivity
for historical theology especially as it could be related to the contemporary Christian.
While reasonably comfortable with the co-authored tome of 1939, Karl trivialized his
doctoral dissertation by saying, “I had also written a small, lousy, but at least, according
to the standards of the time, adequate theological dissertation.”10
Whatever the inspiration, Karl Rahner’s biography shows that he officially
entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in April, 1922. He was eighteen years of age.
Two years later, Karl would take vows and begin the traditional Jesuit academic
formation in the study of philosophy. Karl would also passionately experience the
profound Jesuit cultivation in one’s personal spirituality, a theology which invited limited
disputation and the Ignatian concept of finding God in all things.
His coursework was taught in Latin, and Karl excelled in the language, as part of
the Jesuit model and his personal skill he was required to teach two years of Latin within
the Juniorate of the Jesuit order.11 This facility would serve him will in the future.
In 1937, “kerygmatic theology”, a new theology of preaching was in vogue at
Innsbruck. Ironically, Rahner’s brother, Hugo, was a major proponent of this theological
format which introduced a pastoral preaching component into the abstruse scholastic
theology. Rome abruptly censured this kerygmatic theology wishing to keep the minds
of seminarians focused on the traditional Thomistic propositions.
Since Karl desired to reach the average Christian, he was equally concerned that
teaching two theological approaches would obfuscate both the preacher and the
congregation. He states in his Theological Investigations, “but in fact the strictest
theology, that most passionately devoted to reality alone and ever on the alert for new
questions, the most scientific theology, is itself in the long run the most kerygmatic.”12
Rahner, felt that scholastic theology lacked a pastoral quality. Rahner’s comments share
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